Mladen Jernejec

Pine, my inspiration for the project: The Map-Where I live
They say that pine is not a garden tree. Where I come from, it is. And with my neighbours as well. And many more can be found in Ljubljana. In almost every yard, next to houses, on lawns. Let us not forget that only a few decades ago, living a kilometre from the city centre meant living in the suburbs, which was already changing to the country. That's where the habit originates from, memory of generations, that pines are planted and that garden is not simply put around it and house built. This is of course the vertical of my memory. Well, there are some other reasons why I find the pine so pleasing as well: it smells nice, it's of nice colour too. It's of dark green height, and its towards the ground reaching pinecones give it balance.
When you say pine, my memory floats back to ours: that is my memory. Sometimes other meanings and memories of a conifer sneak in as well, and they are shoving each other joyfully - which one will win?
But the image, perception of a pine, is not just the one, the first, the second, the third, called or provoked from the memory. Sometimes it is seen on a painting, drawing, photography, on television. Sometimes its image is broadcasted live, sometimes only its recording is there, made a long time ago. As on the photos: well, well, a hundred year old pine!
I decide to present the tree in my own media, depict its true image. But which one is more correct: the drawn, painted, pronounced, written, photographed, modelled, sculptured, stolen from the format - its deficit, sensed in a sprinkling form, seen in layered material application? I can project it, show it on the monitor, I can pronounce its name. And it is seen in the mirror? It is only a bit darker and smaller, turned to right and left, but that's what the mirror does.
I would like to provoke the reality of the pine, the one most personal, the one that the viewer will see - his/her own, personal reality of the pine.
I provide the viewer with quite some challenges: I put the pine in the centre of the space, on the opposite side of it, it put the half of the tree next to a mirror. Behind it, let there be a mirror, let its image repeat itself to its own desire. On the left side, let there be its sprinkling image; on the right, the layered one. In one corner, there is empty blueness, let everyone paint their own tree in their minds. In the other, let there be its photograph; in the third, its clipping, its trace; in the fourth, let there be the sign "pine".
I am inviting you to enter this space, think about the uniqueness of the meaning of recognition, face your tree, your pine, your very own reality.
I would give the world to see all the pines of all our real realities.